On Tuesday Reutersreported from Australia, revealing that a lawyer for Apple, Inc. (AAPL) had announced his company's decision to reject a cross-licensing offer from Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (SEO 005930).

I. Apple Seeks Court-Enforced Smart Phone and Tablet Monopoly

Apple and Samsung are currently number one and number two, respectively, in global smartphone and in global tablet sales. While Apple currently holds the lead, Samsung last quarter posted over three times the growth of Apple, making it the world's fastest growing smartphone company. In a bid to try to slow its surging rival, Apple is going after Samsung in court [1][2][3][4] [5][6][7] with lawsuits.

While Apple claims that it approached Samsung prior to the lawsuit with an undisclosed proposal, Apple has thus far refused all settlement offers from Android manufacturers, instead looking to ban their sales in court.

Apple claims that it owns sole rights internationally to make a rectangular glass multi-touch tablet with a "minimalist" design (typically interpreted as a design having one or less face buttons). It holds multiple regional patents on a minimalist tablet design from 2004, which it is using to try to enforce this claim.

In Australia, where the case in this report is being contested, Apple holds three key multi-touch patents -- a patent on the manufacturing of a capacitive touch screen used in the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 (patent AU 2005246219), a patent covering selective rejection of inadvertent finger movements on a touch screen (patent AU 2008258177), and a heuristics patent used to correct a user's finger movements when scrolling vertically on a screen (patent AU 2007286532).

Essentially, Apple pieced together seemingly obvious or widely used techniques and sought patents on them. For example with the AU 2008258177 patent, it combines the common input filtering mechanism found in wireless mice, electronic steering, and more with a multi-touch input device and asserts that to be patentable. In AU 2007286532, Apple combines mild artificial intelligence -- a heuristic (experience-based algorithm) -- with multi-touch finger motions to provide superior motions.

Without input filtering virtually any electronic input device feels glitchy and temperamental. But Apple is in essence claiming that it owns exclusive rights to apply well researched techniques -- filtering and AI learning -- to multi-touch. Needless to say, this is a claim that its rivals, including Google, Inc. (GOOG), find questionable; particularly given the body of peer-reviewed research on the topic published in the 80s and 90s.

If Apple succeeds in either of its claims, it will essentially be able to force Android smartphones and tablets in certain regions to adopt undesirable modifications -- for example glitchy touch interfaces and clumsy extra buttons.

Fig. 2: Apple claims exclusive rights to apply commonly used software techniques like filtering or artificial intelligence to multi-touch input, despite the fact that most of these multi-touch technologies were developed in the 1980s and 1990s [pictured: Early multi-touch interface by Myron Krueger shows pinch zooming; source: Bill Buxton].

However, Samsung has somewhat of a victory under its belt as well. In a decision largely misinterpreted by many news outlets, Apple won a single infringement claim against Samsung in the Netherlands. However, that infringement claim only applied to one easily-removable feature within a single Android app, while Apple's broader claims were rejected. Thus Samsung is not expected to see significant tablet or smartphone sales disruption in the Netherlands -- a victory for the South Korean firm.

The most important ruling, arguably, for Samsung may come this week, when a federal judge decides whether to bow to Apple's request for a preliminary injunction banning all Samsung Android smartphone and tablet imports to the U.S. Apple is suing Samsung in Northern California District Court and claims that the the ban is necessary to prevent Samsung from "slavishly" copying its products.

Fig. 3: A decision on whether to ban U.S. sales of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets could come as soon as this week.

If a ban were to be put in place Samsung's last hope would be to succeed in banning Apple's imports in its countersuits [1][2]. Such a dual-ban could force Apple to agree to cross-licensing out of self-interest. Apple clearly would prefer a one-sided ban, which would allow it to stifle Samsung's product lineup, but it remains to be seen if it will be able to have its way with the American trade court.

The Samsung ruling is very important to the market in general as a preliminary injunction could signal the first of several similar rulings against the top Android manufacturers. These rulings could give Apple a court-enforced monopoly in the U.S. -- or alternatively, be the final nail in the coffin of Apple's bid for market dominance.

Deutsche Telekom AG's (ETR:DTE) T-Mobile USA and Verizon Communications, Inc. (VZ) have filed amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs [1][2] opposing Apple's request for a preliminary injunction stating it would have a catastrophic effect on the American phone market, where Android currently accounts for over half of smartphones sold.

So Apple should just sit there and let Samsung rip them off. You do understand this is Samsung's MO, right? Stealing patents? They stole the IP responsible for the tech in their LCD (8500). As a result, Samsung had to pull their set and could no longer sell that model.

Might be worth getting upset over if it weren't for over 70% of patents being either utter crap or stolen re-jigs.

There are natural language engines out there that were tasked with taking existing patents from the database and adding "over the internet" or "using your mobile phone" to existing patents. This effectively allowed them to steal ideas that weren't theirs.

Kind of like how Apple claims to have invented and subsequently patented multi-touch, when in reality it was invented by University of Toronto researchers in the 1980's.

Thanks to ridiculously lax software, design and technology patent rules, a single phone can have upwards of 50,000 patents applicable to it's design. As a result it has become practically every companies MO to simply ignore patents because of how ridiculous the system has become. They go to the market first, and then deal with the patent fallout as claims arise.

Now everyone has turned this broken system on it's head by attempting to block each other from the market because they are unwilling to capitulate. Apple has likely stolen from just about every single major technology firm that it hasn't cross licensed with and likely every single one of them has inadvertently stolen from Apple.

Hell, even if you just get into what Apple has stolen from it's own development community (and that of the jail breakers) I can think of over 20 ideas that Apple simply ripped off from people on the iPhone alone. In some cases, they even kept the icon and screen designs.

It's painfully obvious, except to those blinded by Apple phobia, that Samsung has deliberately tried to make it's tablet and phones look as much like the Apple equivalents as possible, and that includes the packaging.

Apple is a premium brand and no premium brand is going to tolerate deliberate cloning of it's emblematic product designs by another major company.

Why does anybody think what Samsung did is ethical? It's intent was to deceive the consumer into thinking that they were buying a product just like the Apple products when in reality they were buying an inferior brand and product. Samsung's actions were all about deceiving and confusing the consumer - how is that good?

But that's Tony for you, all lies, half-truths, mischaracterizations and flawed logic. If it has feathers and flies, then it must be a duck, not an eagle, or a sparrow, or a woodpecker... definitely a duck.

And you are being extremely naive jumping to the conclusion that because it looks similar to an iPad, Samsung must have copied. What's far more likely is that they saw how well the iPad was doing, and thought "Hey, let's go back to a design we came up with in 2006 and turn that into a tablet."

Show me a single consumer who would be confused between a minimalistic black rectangle and an iPhone (or iPad). The Apple brand is quite strong, and people under no circumstances would be confused by the "look" of two products. Now, if Samsung tried putting a pear with a bite out of it on the back, hid thier name from marketing literature, and tried to "pass it off" as an Apple product, then I'd agree with you. Instead, Samsung plasters thier name everywhere, and goes out of it's way to advertise that this is an Android device.

As it is, there is no customer confusion. Do you actually believe that a customer is going to walk into an AT&T store, see the two products (similarly priced, I might add), and figure they are the same? Or both Apple? C'mon, get real Tony.

Honestly, you wouldn't be "decieved" by such practices. Apparently, you think you are better than everyone else.

problem with tech sites, is that everyone looks at things like a simple equation.

just because they stamped their name on it, doesnt mean they didnt have the intention. on the contrary, they fooled you. It isnt about them literally confusing a samsung product for an apple (have some original thought, please) it is about samsung being so simliar that it has a fighting chance.

Apple is what everyone recognizes. If your product looks so different, it is alienating. People dont always welcome changes like that.

Consider back 10 years, when everyone had a flip phone. They were all similar, more or less. They flipped open, top part had a speaker with a small LCD screen, bottom had a keypad and a microphone.

Why didn't all the companies producing them back then sue each other? You want to know why? Because they knew they were all the same. What you really seem to forget is that you can't patent a look. Patenting a 'minimalistic' design gives you a monopoly, plain and simple. Your first retort will of course be, put more buttons on the front! Well, why should someone have to put more needless buttons on front? It's not needed. In fact, my current tablet has none. It's best that way. Plain and simple, it's a very easy way to corner the market. If that was the case, apple could file 2 patents, one with 'minimalistic design' and one with 'a fair design with numerous buttons'. This would exclude everyone from the market because there wouldn't be any designs that this wouldn't cover!

You say it's not black and white. You talk about it not being black and white. It really is. I understand Samsung makes something that looks similar, but it's a PHONE.

Lastly, on confusing apple products with samsung...I would think they would be concerned with confusing Fake apple products with apple products. Almost every phone out there has some manufacturer name stamped on the front of it. So, that being said, since when did "Samsung" turn into "Apple"? Oh, I know, it's the new Iphone Samsung 50004GSLTE!

Was that ridiculous enough for you? Probably not. Go back to making love with your fruit.

Having spent some time @ Moto, I can tell you that the microphone in the flip part is protected by a Moto patent, and NOBODY was allowed to do the same for free. There are a lot of phones out there which have a flip part with no electronics inside because of it :) (they have the mike next to the hinge, and it works well enough).

Only problem is that Samsung is the premium product in all but name. Better hardware and software equal the win. That's why Samsung is quickly closing in on the #1 spot. Apple simply can't steal any more ideas to get back into the lead.

I guess your friends/relatives/acquaintances are a lot dumber than mine. I don't know of anyone stupid enough to pick up a box with the word Samsung across the top and think "I'm getting an Apple iPad!". I'd be really interested to see some evidence that anyone was deceived or confused into buying a Galaxy Tab when they meant to get an iPad.

People these days (even the ones that aren't computer savvy) are pretty good about brand recognition thanks to the never ending stream of advertising, etc. that we've all been exposed to since birth.

Apple is getting away with this stuff because of the way the legal system is structured. That's it. They're being more aggressive about it than other companies have been, but in the end, it's just another business tactic. Ethics doesn't play into this at all.